The mobile age, it seems, is finally approaching and that’s precisely the reason why Responsive Web Design (RWD) is making headlines this year! Smartphone share in both developed and developing countries in the world is increasing at a fast pace and if you want to personally check it – take a look at your traffic analytics and notice the latest trend – mobile traffic is increasing!
Startups as well as established companies like Microsoft and Sony have embraced RWD. Thousands of online enterprises are now keen on investing in a user experience that works well for users accessing their websites from mobile devices. There is no absolute answer to the question whether Responsive Web Design is suitable for your website or not.
Ready to ride on the hype-wagon, if you’re now contemplating modifying or redesigning your website to have a responsive design, it’s important that you first understand the pros and cons of RWD to make an informed decision!
Pros of Responsive Web Designs
Reduced Maintenance Costs: With RWD technology, you need not have multiple versions of the same website. One responsive website alone is ‘responsive’ to mobile or computing devices with variable-sized screens. Complete code of a responsive website is kept at once place, thereby making it easy for you or the developer to make future changes or adjustments.
Internet Marketing and Monitoring Benefits: With RWD, you’ll no longer need multiple URLs such as mobi.yourdomain.com. A responsive website has just one standard URL and therefore, you can get the maximum SEO juice without any dilution, primarily caused by redundant or duplicate URLS linking to the same content. Tracking website traffic or monitoring the progress of an internet marketing campaign too is easier when you’ve just one URL.
Brand Recognition: Uniform presentation of a website on disparate devices helps in creating the desired perception about a brand. When it comes to brand marketing, ‘consistency’ is the word and that’s exactly what responsive website designs help you to achieve on the World Wide Web!
Superior Cross-Platform UX: The key reason behind the popularity of RWD technology is the superior user experience it offers on different types of mobiles, smartphones, laptops, netbooks and monitors. Since a responsive website intelligently customizes its navigation and display area according to the device, the overall User Experience is greatly enhanced.
Maximize SMM Output: Besides SEO, social media marketing is now a key component of any online promotion campaign. With a responsive website design, you can make sure that your website pages are being served well to everyone when shared on social networks including those using tablets, smartphones etc.
Newer Devices Will Hit the Market: Every quarter, a large number of gadgets with internet access capabilities are released and there is no screen size standard. The best way you can make your website available to these users it to have a responsive web design.
Cons of Responsive Web Designs
Still at its Nascent Stage: The responsive web design technology is in growth mode. As more businesses and web development communities embrace RWD, it will continue to evolve. Since the technology is relatively new, it is likely to undergo major changes in future.
Increased Development Time: Developing a responsive website takes much longer than an ordinary website. Developers may also find it challenging to learn and implement newer concepts.
Lack of Support: Unlike mature web design technologies, RWD is not backed by support forums or online tools for performance checks. In fact, finding a developer or firm that can take up the task of designing a responsive design for you is not easy!
Unexpected Navigation Issues: When the visible website space is resized, menus too are resized. Navigation on some mobile devices can be completely different from what you actually wanted it to be.
Load Time: Images or other graphics are not scaled down when a responsively designed web page is loaded on variable sized screens. They’re downloaded by the browser as such, thereby significantly increasing the total web page load time.